Release date: July 18, 2008
Lateness: 3 months
The Dark Knight was easily one of the most hyped movies in the past year. In fact, the last year had pretty much been nothing but hype for this movie’s release. After the untimely death of actor Heath Ledger, the hype reached disgusting high levels. Its release broke box office records left and right, and people wondered if it would become the highest grossing film of all time (A position that Titanic held with a colossal $600 million total gross).
The hype has now finally died down three months later. Though it did not best $600 million, it did make an admirable $527 million, making it the second highest grossing film. Now, with 10 dollars in my pocket and constant bugging by friends I saw the movie.
And I’m glad I waited.
Since this a three month old movie that I’m sure everyone has seen by now, I’m going to spare you the usually review plot summary bullshit you’ve seen a million times before. I will instead tell you what I liked and disliked about the movie.
The Icing on the Cake
Aaron Eckhart’s performance
Aaron Eckhart was absolutely phenomenal as Harvey Dent. I personally believe he had the strongest performance in the whole movie (sorry Heath Ledger…you were good, but not the best in my opinion)
The Visuals
Christopher Nolan has proven time and time again that he is a master behind the camera. He is able to pull off amazing effects without resorting to a lot of obvious CG.
Christian Bale’s “Batman” voice
An often criticized factor for most people, and a strong point to me. Bruce Wayne doesn’t want people knowing that he is Batman. A mask and cape aren’t enough to hide his identity, so he would need to disguise his voice as well. For Christian Bale, it would be imitating a 3 pack a day smoker.
The Poop in the Punchbowl
The Length
I’m unsure if the movie was too long or too short. Certain parts of the movie seemed to drag on for much too long, yet other parts seemed to be simply skimmed through.
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s performance
Holy shit was her acting terrible in this movie. I know it would have been practically impossible to get Katie Holmes to reprise her character out of Tom Cruise’s clutches, but damn, a monkey could have shit out a better performance. I practically cheered when her character was killed.
Two-Face’s demise
I felt that there could have been much more done with the character of Two-Face than what was done. His premature death ended all hope for seeing Harvey Dent further descend into madness.
